"A Personal Savior" - Mark 7:31-40

I know you didn't mean to pick that song, but that last song that you did was

a great song for us this week.

I know you're with me, you go before me, you stand beside me.

That was a good reminder as we walked through this week. Well,

as we begin this morning, we get to cover a passage that's not found in any other gospel, right?

Mark doesn't have a ton of those, but this is one of them. We're at the end of Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

And I wanted to take a quick second, as I like to do from time to time,

and just remind us of something in Mark and just something about your Bible

that when you read your gospels, when you're especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke,

they're not meant to be biographies, right? They're not meant to tell you everything.

It's not a history channel show where there's episodes and he's trying to go

through every single thing that's going on.

They're gospels, they're good news, right? They have a specific purpose.

Do you remember Mark 1, 14 says, after John was put into prison,

Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

The time has come, Jesus said. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.

This is the purpose of Mark's gospel. And every gospel is to put before you

the good news of Jesus Christ.

Not everything, right? When you meet certain scholars and certain people,

they'll pick apart the gospels and say, well, it doesn't say this.

And it doesn't tell you what he did here. And what about his childhood?

And what about this? And the easy answer to that is, that's not the point.

You're missing the point. The point of the gospels is to put before people the

good news of Jesus Christ, that the kingdom of God has drawn near,

that God has wrapped himself in flesh, and that he is with you.

When he says the kingdom of God is near, if you remember we talked that this is not about a location.

Jesus isn't giving them a Google Maps to say, hey, if you want to find where

Jesus is and you want to know where God is, We'll take a left at the synagogue

and a right at this street, and then here it is.

It's not over the yellow brick road. It's not through an archway,

right? He is describing a reign, a kingly reign that the kingdom of God,

the king of the kingdom of God is here.

He has come to earth. The reign of God over his people in the world is now established

in the person of Jesus Christ himself.

This is actually a theme really throughout the whole Bible. It's one of the

reasons you need to know your Old Testament.

If you want to turn in your Bibles, right in the middle, Isaiah 35.

This will come in handy later. We're not reading this for no reason.

Isaiah writing about the time in which the kingdom will be revealed says this,

Then will the eyes of the blind be open, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

Isaiah looked forward to a day that the kingdom of God would be known among the people of God.

And what we've seen in the gospels thus far, if you're reading your Bibles,

especially the first century Christians, what Mark is trying to do is say,

hey, that thing that Isaiah was talking about,

that person that Isaiah was talking about, that time that Isaiah was talking

about, when the eyes of the blind will be open and the ears of the deaf would

be unstopped and the lame would

leap like a deer, and the mute would shout for joy. This is that time.

And so Mark, Matthew, and Luke pick stories. They pick specific things to say,

to attest to Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah.

He is the one that has come. He is the one promised from Genesis 3.

He's the one the prophets spoke about. He's the one that Moses looked forward

to. He's the one that David talked about.

Isaiah was talking about this and he was looking forward to the day that Jesus

would come and God's kingdom would be among them.

That's what we read in the gospels.

Again, just like to stop and remind us of that from time to time,

because if not, we get lost reading the gospels and we try and say,

well, what does this teach me? And what kind of personality do you think Jesus had?

What kind of person do you think he was? What do you think his mom was like?

And those are fun questions. And I don't mind talking about those things.

Just to be reminded though, that that wasn't the purpose of the gospels.

It's not to give you a personality test of the people in it.

It's to show you that Jesus is the promised one. He is the promised one.

So that is my, if you'll turn back to Mark.

Again, this is Mark chapter seven, 31 through 37. Let me read this with you.

Again, if you have a Bible, great. If you don't, there's Bibles around.

If you don't have a Bible, there's not one on your table. Let us know. We will get you one.

And if you don't have a Bible, take that one home. You can have it.

That way you don't have to feel like you're stealing it. I just tell you,

you don't have to feel bad about stealing a Bible.

Verse 31, then he, that's Jesus, returned from the region of Tyre and went through,

Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis.

And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.

And they begged him to lay his hand on him.

And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears.

And after spitting, touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven,

he sighed and said to him, a fafta, and I'm probably saying that wrong.

I looked it up. I tried, right?

A fafta, that is be opened.

And his ears were open and his tongue was released and he spoke plainly.

Jesus charged them to tell no one, but the more he charged them,

the more zealously they proclaimed it.

And they were astonished beyond measure saying, he has done all things well.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

So as we begin the story here, I just want to take a look at the request,

the request that's made to Jesus.

Jesus is traveling, and it's interesting, verse 32 starts with, and they brought to him.

They brought to him. What an interesting detail. Who's they? We don't know.

It should take your mind back to Mark chapter 2, when we talked about the paralytic

Mark 2 · chapter mention

that his friends climbed up on top of this roof and got through all of the thatch

and mud roof and dropped their friend down.

Do we know the names of that guy's friend? We don't, no clue.

It's just they. Some of your translations may read some men,

some men, some friends of his.

I think this is a poignant reminder that much of the gospel work that is done

is not by big names, but by a vast array of complete unknowns.

Most of the people that have made a massive impact in my life are people that

most of the world will never know.

They won't know their names. They won't know who they are. They won't know what

they did. They'll know nothing.

For most of us in this room, that's our reality, right?

Most people in the world will not know my name. It's just true.

Now, certain other of us may be famous for other things. Maybe you're a secret

Instagram star and I don't know it.

That would be great. That would be cool, right? Maybe you've got a huge following

on YouTube. I don't know.

But for most of us, the work that we do, the gospel work that we do,

though it's a big deal to us and it should be to the world, complete unknown.

And so when you read this and you say, okay, verse 32, and they brought to him,

what I hope it wells up inside of you is, man, I hope that's me.

I hope I'm a they to somebody, right? I hope I'm just some guy in a story that

my part to play in the story is they brought him to Jesus.

They brought him to Jesus. We don't know their names. We don't know their stories.

We don't know who they are. We don't know what they're like.

All we know about these men, these people, these friends is that they brought him to Jesus.

It is astounding how easily we can slip into thinking that fame equals faithful

when it has nothing to do with that.

It has nothing to do with that. That numbers equal faithfulness,

that excitement equals faithfulness, that man, a big event and a big hurrah, right?

If you grew up like I did going to youth stuff, man, I felt like if it was a

big night and everyone was crying and everything was going on.

It's like, man, God is moving.

And then somebody would say, well, hey, you want to grab coffee with me and

do a Bible study? I'm like, what's the point?

Right? I want the big event. I want to experience something.

I want to feel something.

It turns out in my life, I have been changed,

exponentially more by coffee with friends,

and dinners around tables and people taking me aside and discipling me and being

honest with me than I have ever been changed by some big moment, right?

Moments come and go. Your feelings come and go.

But the people in your life that you can look at and you can point and say,

they, they bring me to Jesus.

They make sure that I find my way to Jesus. Those people will change your life exponentially.

There is no comparison. That's what they do. So may we strive as a church and

just as individuals to be those people, those some people, those some friends

who bring our friends before the Lord and do what?

What do we do when we bring people to the Lord? We ask. We talked about this

this morning in Bible study. We request.

What is their request? They begged him to lay his hand on him.

They begged him to lay his hand on them. Most of the time when you see the word,

speak or talk in the Bible, it's kaleo. It just means to talk.

This word here is peril, sorry, perilacousin, perilacousin.

And it literally means to urge or exhort, to urge or exhort.

Think of it like an urgent request that you have for someone.

There may be other things going on. There may be other people talking,

but you have something that you need to tell someone. It's an urgent request.

That's how his friends go to the Lord. And again, what is this teaching us?

Listen, we want to be those people.

And when we go to the Lord to pray for our friends and to put them in front

of him, we don't pray casually.

We don't bring the request casually.

We urgently come and say, Lord, you are the only one that can fix this.

You're the only one that can do something about this. There's no one else I

can go to. There's no one else I can run to.

You got to know at this point, this guy has tried the doctors and he's tried

other things and he's tried medicines. He's tried everything he can to fix this problem.

And all of a sudden his friends hear about, because guess what? He can't hear.

His friends hear about Jesus and they hear about the fact that there's this,

Jewish rabbi walking around preaching repentance and belief,

but that he's walking and he's touching and he's healing people and his friends

are the ones that hear because he can't hear.

And so they bring him to this place and they beg Jesus to touch him.

I don't know if there's a better picture of what it means to be a church to

people who are lost than this, right? We don't bring people into our church

and say, we're gonna teach you how to live a better life.

It's like, yeah, man, you're deaf, but we're gonna give you the most comfortable

deaf life we can give you.

We're gonna give you the most comfortable life that we could possibly have.

We'll make sure we make every accommodation, make sure everything gets taken

care of for you, that you'll never have to work real hard. We'll pay for all

of the problems in your life.

And we're just gonna make you as comfortable as we can make you.

That's not what they do. And when people come into our church,

what we don't wanna do is say, listen,

we'll make this the most comfortable place that you can come and never be challenged,

never be pushed, never be called to repent, never be called to change your ways,

never be called to quit living in sin, right?

We just wanna make you comfortable and make this a nice place that when you

come here, everybody leaves happy, right? Every now and again,

we'll have a meal because everybody likes to be happy after a meal.

We'll do all the things that make you comfortable. right? That's not what they're

asking. The request to Jesus is, Jesus, we believe that you are the one that heals people.

And we have a friend here that can't hear, but we've brought him to you and

we're begging you, would you touch him? Would you touch him?

So what is the problem? Well, his speech obviously is impaired.

Again, the word used here is really interesting.

The word has a connotation of not just that he can't hear, it's that his whole

being, his ears and his mouth and his faculties don't work.

It's not just that he can't hear, it's that he can't hear and he can't talk

because he can't hear. And it's this picture that Mark his painting of, this guy has no hope.

There's nothing about his life. There's nothing about where he is that gives

him a reason to go, it's going to get better.

Yeah, I mean, I can't hear, but I can do other things.

I can't talk, but I can do other things.

The word here is mogololos. Mogololos. A lot of Greek words this morning, and I'm trying my best.

I appreciate y'all's patience. It's been a long week.

But the reason this word is so interesting is because this is the only time

it appears in the whole New Testament. It's the only time.

The reason it's even more interesting, it's the only time the word is ever used,

in the New Testament, and it's only used one other place in the Old Testament.

When you read your Septuagint, your Greek Old Testament, this word is used one

place. They may have a clue as to where that place might be.

If you were listening earlier, you know, it's Isaiah 35.

And Mark is, again, Mark's point, he's making a point.

The one time that this word is used in your Greek Old Testament,

people, I'm using it right here.

The one time that this word shows up in your Old Testament is Isaiah 35,

5, where Isaiah is obviously talking about the coming kingdom of God,

that God is going to show up.

His kingdom is going to be made known. And what's going to happen?

The deaf are going to hear, the mogaleos is going to hear.

And again, we miss this because our words differ and our translations differ.

But imagine you're delighted in the first century and you're surprised when

you discover as you're reading through Isaiah, and then you're reading through

Mark, that these words are the exact same and it's the only place you see them.

You think this is just happenstance, just random, right? That this well-known

Greek word is only used in one place in both places. I don't think so.

Again, what Mark is trying to tell them is, listen, the kingdom of God is at

hand. What's interesting about the miracle stories is what we don't know about

the people that the miracles are happening for.

We hardly ever have a name, ever, right? We hardly ever get the backstory.

These people show up, Jesus heals them, and they go on, and we never know anything

else about them. Why is that?

Because the gospel is about Jesus. The gospel is about Christ.

Mark is putting Jesus on a pedestal to say, again, this is the one. Where else would you go?

As the disciples begin to make these connections, it's when you start hearing

them say things as people leave, and Jesus looks at his disciples and goes,

well, are you going to leave? And what do they say?

Where else can we go? You have the words of life. They're not just saying that

because they've watched him do miracles.

They're not just saying that because they've seen powerful things happen around him.

They're saying that because they're beginning to see the connection between

this guy is doing everything that the prophets that we so revere says that the Messiah will do.

That these guys that we've been studying that wrote 2000, 3000 years ago,

These guys that we know are true, that we believe what they were saying is going

to happen when God shows up is exactly what this Jesus guy is doing.

They're not awed simply by Jesus's miracles.

They're awed that Jesus is before them and they're starting to put it and go,

oh, this is exactly what Isaiah said would happen.

This is exactly what Isaiah said. This is exactly what David said would happen.

Oh man, Ezekiel talked to us. Jeremiah spoke of this day.

Again, they don't put it together until after Jesus is crucified and raised,

but they are beginning to see those things.

And again, what Mark wants his readers to know and what he wants us to know

is that the kingdom truly has come, that the king is here.

So repent and believe the good news.

Repent and believe the good news.

We have a gracious response to this request. It's a beautiful picture of Christ.

What does it say he does? As they say, he just does the miracle and walks off.

I've got a lot of miracles to do, man.

I got a lot of things going on. It would have been easy for Jesus to do that.

No, it says, and Jesus takes him aside from the crowd privately.

He takes him aside from the crowd. What a tender and personal response.

Again, to Jesus, this man isn't just another person that needs a miracle.

You could imagine at this point, you would understand if another person walks

up to Jesus and needs a miracle and Jesus in his flesh is just going,

ah, another one. It's always with you people.

Constantly. Like, why can't you just leave me alone? It's like,

I've already fed 5,000 of you.

I've already healed all these people. I've already cast out all these demons.

Like, when is it ever going to end?

That's not who Jesus is. Jesus is drawn into these things. He's drawn into these places.

He hates to see what sin has done to his creation and ultimately his people.

It makes Jesus angry. It makes Jesus upset.

And that anger doesn't drive him to be angry at his people. It drives him to be compassionate.

It drives him to be caring. It drives him to look at this guy and pull him aside.

Why? Because he's a person. It's a personal thing. He looks him in the eyes. He loves him.

He doesn't swing his jacket around. He doesn't stop and create a moment.

He doesn't ask his disciples to set up a stage and a giving box.

He doesn't do any of the things that we see done today. He looks at a person

and he says, man, I love this person.

He pulls them aside.

But it's almost as if to say like, listen, the crowd, if I do this in front

of the crowd, it's just another miracle for them to watch.

And I don't really care that people are here to watch me put on a show because

certainly people are there to do that.

Certainly people are there following Jesus around to go, man,

you got to watch this guy.

Right? This guy's like David Copperfield, like you will not believe what he pulls off.

So Jesus pulls this guy away. And certainly his methods are a little unorthodox

for us, right? When he pulls this guy aside and he sticks his fingers in his

ears, and then he spits on the tips of his fingers and puts it on his tongue.

For us, that's a weird day, right? And that is fair.

I would bet even if you had a friend that was deaf and I said,

hey, bring them to my house, I've got a way to fix them. You go,

well, how do you fix them? I'm going to spit on my hands. I'm going to touch their tongue.

You would probably be like, you know, we're going to try some other things first.

I've got some other appointments set up. There's some things I want to, and I get that.

I would say I don't, culturally, if you read this as a person,

I don't think it would be as stark.

I'm not saying everyone's walking around putting fingers in people's mouths,

but they definitely had a different way of going about things.

And I don't want to spend a ton of time talking about what Jesus does other

than to say, this is again very personal it's very personal he's going to put his hands on this guy,

it's interesting Mark says that he sighs he sighs.

There aren't very many times that we're given an emotional response that Jesus has.

I think one of the most poignant times we see this, though, is when he's at

the tomb of Lazarus. And what does he do? He weeps. Jesus weeps.

You have it in the Garden of Gethsemane when he's overwhelmed to the point of sorrow.

You have it here. And what is Jesus confronted by every time?

Again, the ravaging impact of sin in the lives of men and women that he loves.

The dramatic impact of the fall of man as it is identified in the predicament

of this poor character here in Mark.

He looks at this man brought here by his friends, and as he sees him in his

deafness and his mutinous, what does he do? He sighs.

I think presumably like he weeps for Lazarus or in Gethsemane,

there's some anger and sadness in this.

And then what does he do? He sighs and what is it? He looks up. He looks up.

Drawing to mind Psalm 121, right? What does it say? I lift mine eyes onto the hills.

Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

He sighs and he looks up. Again, I want you to feel the personal moment that

Jesus is having with this man.

Again, it's not just a fly by night, Heal the guy and move on. He pulls this guy aside.

He touches his ears. He touches his mouth. He sighs. He looks up.

Verse 35 says, and what happens? His ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

He spoke plainly.

I think this is an incredible picture of what salvation is for you and for me.

The Bible describes people that are lost as deaf and mute, people that cannot

hear God's word because their ears are dead, people that can't speak God's word

because they don't know who God is. They're lost.

What does it look like for someone to be saved? Well, it looks like the gospel going forth.

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news?

How beautiful are the feet of they, of some people, of some men and women

who are nameless and faithless to 99.999% of humans in the world,

but how beautiful are the feet of those who make the gospel known,

who bring people to Jesus,

and who on their behalf plead with Jesus, would you save my friend?

We are completely dependent upon you to do this. I know that in my own life,

in my own world, in my own faculties, I can't save them.

I can't save my own kids.

I can't save my best friends. I can't save anyone. I can't do it on my own.

Jesus, I need you to do it.

I'm putting these people at your feet because I know that you can.

And I am asking you, I am pleading with you that you would save them.

And what does Jesus do when he saves people? What has Jesus done for you and

for me? Salvation isn't a mass event.

It's a person by person by person event. If you're saved, it doesn't matter

if you were saved in a room of 10,000 people, Jesus came and got you and he

pulled you aside and he touched your face.

He touched your ears. He touched your tongue.

He saved you and he didn't do it for a spectacle.

He didn't do it so that everyone would look at him and think he's great.

He did it because he loves you and he chose you in eternity past that he would save you.

And he knew where you would be. He knew what position you would be in.

He knew that you would be dead in your sins and he would love you and he would care for you.

And he would sigh on your behalf and be angry that the sin in your life has

killed you. But he would look up to his father the same way he would do before

he goes to the cross and go, I'll take that sin.

I'll pay that debt. I'll save you. I'll heal you.

And what is the response of people who have been saved by Jesus Christ?

Verse 36, Jesus charged them to tell no one. Now, obviously that's not what he's charged us to do.

At this point, Jesus is still in some ways trying to keep what he's doing under

wraps. It's not time for that yet.

But what do they do? But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

It's if he is going, listen, I need you to keep this under wraps.

I need you not telling anybody. They're going, are you serious?

Are you serious? How could we not tell people?

How could we be saved? How could we see this happen? How could we be a part

of this and not go tell people?

Verse 37, they were astonished beyond measure saying, he has done all things

well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. I think a question I like

to ask people all the time is, when was the last time you were astonished by Jesus?

Was the last time you sat and thought about what Jesus has done for you and

considered his grace and his mercy towards you, towards your family, towards your friends?

Are you astonished by him? Are you just coming to church?

You just sing in the songs, you know, just going to do the things that you know

you're supposed to do. And you like Jesus.

You think Jesus is really great. You believe that he saved you,

right? You very well are going to heaven.

That's not the question I'm asking. The question is, are you astonished by Christ,

or has your love for him grown cold?

Do you find yourself thinking more and more and more about the world around

you, the life you live, the worries and the cares of this world,

the things that weigh you down, the things you've got to do tomorrow?

I am so guilty of this at times where I'm at church, I'm doing my devotionals

or whatever, and I just can't get the day out of my head.

I've just got all these things that I need to do and all these things I need

to get done and all these problems I feel like I need to solve.

And it just robs me of sitting there and just having a moment of being astonished

that I can sit here and talk to the Lord,

have a right because of what Christ has done for me and in me,

that I can sit and talk to the Lord, that I have a mediator before God,

that my sins are forgiven, that my iniquities have been passed over.

That the God of the universe has come down and touched my ears and my mouth

and my eyes and has given me a new heart.

When was the last time you just stopped and thought, that is amazing,

that is an incredible thing, and just been astonished by it?

Can I tell you a secret? it doesn't change what you're going to do.

Those problems will be there when you get up.

I promise you. They're not going anywhere.

The work that you have to do will be the work you have to do.

The situation that arises will be the situation that arises.

The grief, the pain, the agony that you're experiencing, whatever that may be,

it will still be there when you get up.

What changes is not your circumstances. What changes is your eyes and your ears

and your hearing and seeing Christ clearly.

And you can say with Paul, this light and momentary affliction in my life.

I was talking to Bone about this this week. I said, isn't it incredible,

that Paul writes to a group of people that are literally being hunted by the

government and being thrown in arenas and being dipped in candle wax to be candles

and the families are being broken up and fathers are being murdered.

And Paul writes to them and he says, hey, that is light and momentary affliction.

If Paul wrote me that, I think I would write him back and be like,

bro, you have no idea what I'm going through.

You have no clue. You have no right to tell me that my affliction is light and momentary.

Does Paul say? He doesn't say it's light and momentary. He says it's light and

momentary in what? In comparison to the glory that is to come.

That's what spending time with Christ and being astonished by him does.

It reminds us there is a glory to come.

I will be with the Lord, right? I'll be with him.

And all of these things that I'm going through and all of these issues in my

life and all of these issues that I'm facing, they pale in comparison to how

good and great and gracious and merciful the Lord has been to me.

So again, in conclusion, are you astonished by Jesus? Are you astonished by him?

Are you like the they in this passage?

Who can you look at in your life and say, I am determined to get that person

to Jesus? I'm not going to say I'll save them. I can't do that.

But I am determined to bring them to the person that is Jesus Christ and put

the gospel in front of them and plead on their behalf, Jesus, would you save them?

Would you say that's the only hope I have, Jesus, that you would save them?

Maybe if nothing else this morning, you would be reminded, as I would imagine

most of us in this room would call ourselves Christians already,

but you would be reminded that this is how Jesus saves you, that he pulled you aside.

Doesn't matter how many people are in the world. When you got saved,

he saved you and he put his hands on your ears and,

he put his fingers on your tongue and he gave you a new heart and you were saved

by God Almighty through the personal work of Jesus Christ and the power of his

spirit, you were redeemed.

Again, we get lost in that sometimes, I think, especially in these texts is

because everyone you meet is saved.

It's like a corporate event here, but that's not what Jesus has done.

So would we be the they? Would you be someone that brings other people to Jesus?

Would you be reminded that Jesus, if you're saved, has saved you,

you, specifically you, exactly where you were, exactly where you are.

He is saving you right now, and he will save you to the end.

And lastly, we would be a people that as we go out, what we do is we are astonished

in such a way that we can't keep our mouths shut about who Jesus is and what he has done.

Astonished people talk about what astonishes them.

That's just life. When I talk to people who have seen certain things that astonish

them, they hit me with, oh, you got to go see it.

You just got to be there. You had to be there. Oh man, if you could see this,

if you could experience this, you just got to go.

All right. We are that way with Christ. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that we have the gospels that speak

clearly about who your son, Jesus Christ was,

that they point us to the fact that he is the promised Messiah,

that he is who Isaiah had in mind.

Not lose track of that. We would

not get lost in the malaise of church and things that come with that.

But would this be a place that we are constantly coming to be reminded and astonished

by the fact that Jesus saves sinners?

Would this be a place where we are constantly believing and repenting,

believing and repenting as Christ has called us to?

Would we be the kind of people that bring people to Jesus, not to try and make

them like us, not to try and make them dress like us or act like us or talk

like us or read the books we read or listen to the music that we listen to.

But Christ, that's not our job. Our job is to bring them to you and to make

disciples that love you and care for you. And they may look a little different

and they may act a little different.

That's okay. We want them to know who you are.

And we would be astonished in such a way that we can't keep our mouths shut,

that we cannot keep our mouths shut about what you have done and what you have

accomplished in our lives. She and I pray, amen.